Children’s Therapy Center Bargaining Update

Our Union Union Bargaining Team: Ronda Duluoz-Infant Mental Health, Lindsey Gilbert-Family Resource Coordinator, Megan Rupert-Special Educator

Our bargaining session on February 27 was a productive day. We worked diligently throughout the morning to provide a complete response to everything on the table with the Employer, with a major focus on the caseload calculator. In analyzing our position and Children’s Therapy Center’s position, we realized that we were trying to codify two different things. We were trying to capture a caseload maximum that would prevent a person from being given too many cases and compensated if they were, whereas the Employer was trying to capture direct service time. Both calculations have merit and utilize similar inputs to be calculated, however, when using either our math or theirs, we were not able to achieve both goals simultaneously. As such, we incorporated both into our proposal. The Employer had questions and will have to review it, but overall, it was a very productive discussion. The Employer went back to work on their proposal and came later in the afternoon to let us know they were still working but that they told us we had made a lot of movement and they saw areas of agreement in other proposals we made. Overall, we felt we made a lot of progress.
 
That being said, we are still very far apart on the total compensation package that the employer has been touting. It has been extremely hard to extricate the individual components to compare across agencies. While pay comparisons are apples to apples, Health Insurance is extremely hard as even if the premiums are the same, the coverage given for those premiums can vary tremendously. In addition, we do not know the accrual rates of paid time off, or when they increase, for other agencies. We are encouraging the employer to negotiate each component individually so that we can have an easier time evaluating CTC’s relative position in the market. Additionally, the employer wants us to have a two year contract and open the contract to negotiate wages after the first year. We do not want to have to negotiate wages every year and we feel it is reasonable to have built in raises into our contract, as almost all other union contracts do.
 
Because of this gulf, we are creating a petition to pass around and sign. It will not be seen by the Employers until we surpass a certain threshold of signatures to ensure that people are not singled out. It will be circulated shortly, and we encourage everyone to sign!
 
We have our next Contract Action Team Meeting on Tuesday March 10 at 7pm. We hope to see everyone there!

Union Contract Action Team: March 10 at 7pm Via Zoom >>

Meeting ID: 891 8894 5321 Passcode: 295451